“Enough.” I clenched my thighs together. “I’m serious, Jason.”
“Two days of friendship,” he announced. “Two days without the past, only the present. Give me two days.”
“Why would I do that?”
His face saddened. “For closure, for both of us…”
Closure. The word gutted me, made me want to puke in the corner then start rocking.
But I knew I needed it just as much as he did.
And since my therapist felt like it would be good for me to go home and deal with the one situation that had always plagued me…
I heard myself whispering, “Yes.”
“We start in…” he checked his imaginary watch, “…three hours. Get ready, baby. Things are about to get… heated.”
“I thought you said friends?”
“I mean, literally. Say a prayer I don’t get fired.” He winked, and then he scampered off as if we hadn’t just had a yelling match a few hours earlier.
As if we didn’t have a chasm of pain between us.
Like he used to, so many years ago, when he’d stand outside my window and chat with me for hours because he said he’d rather see my face in person than talk on the phone.
I closed the window, crawled back into bed, and hugged my knees. I almost hadn’t survived leaving him. How in the world was I going to survive this? Doing it again? Only this time, I would be the one begging him to stay, and Jason Caro — the man I’d always loved — would be the one walking away.
Karma.
Sucked.